News from the Editor

Modules in release 1.1

Release 1.1 is shipping shortly and the major thing here is the Creating and Installing of Modules for doing e.g. Export and Import from/to FrontAccounting.

How is it done?

A new folder has been established, called modules. There are two files in this folder, index.php (a redirector) and a file called installed_modules.php.

This file is very similar to another file, /lang/installed_languages.inc. The only thing the file contains is a variable, called $installed_modules. This is a two-dimensional array containing information about the installed modules. Which menu-tab they belong to, the name of the menu-title, the folder name and the PHP filename.

Whenever a new module is installed, a new folder is created inside the /module folder. This new folder contains the PHP file belonging to the module.

We have created a new Download page, under Download, called DL Modules. Here there are a couple of test modules, but will gradually contain more professional modules. Some are already under development, but you might also have some ideas, especially after you have read the rest of this news.

Installing a new module

A new menu title has been constructed under the Setup tab, Maintenance section, called Install/Update Modules.

Click the Install/Update Modules link and the following picture show up. The first time you install a module the list will be empty. Follow the recommendations in the attached readme.txt file. Enter the recommended values or your own values.

If you are a Developer, look at the PHP file to see how easily these files can be written. The high-level routines will be documented in a while, but you can look in:

/includes/ui/ui_lists.inc, /includes/ui/ui_input.inc and the other ui_???.inc files. These files contains routines for user interaction and for display. The HTML is kept away at most for better structuring of the business logics.

You can also look in the db folders for high-level database routines. These will also be documented ASAP.